The present invention relates to detecting objects in an image.
Conventional object detection techniques involve scanning an image pixel by pixel and for each pixel in the image, comparing a two-dimensional region of pixels centered on the pixel against a two-dimensional template of the expected object. This process can be slow and computationally intensive.
Furthermore, to account for distortions among individual occurrences of the object, it is typical that multiple templates are used and the process is repeated for each template. This further increases the time and computational requirements of the process.
One application of object detection is redeye detection. When exposed to flash lighting, the retina of a human eye reflects red light. This causes portions of the eye, typically portions of the pupil or iris, to appear red in photographic images. This effect is commonly referred to as redeye. Object detection techniques can be used to identify portions of the image that have been discolored as a result of the redeye effect.